FyneFest 2013

There is no beer fest I looked forward more to in my 31 years than FyneFest 2013. It was my first time going and I’m pretty certain won’t be my last. Fyne Fest takes place in Argyll up in Western Scotland. Here’s a helpful map to help you get your head around where I went:

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From London I took the Caledonian Sleeper from Euston to Glasgow. It was lucky for me to have made it as I decided to go out for a few pints with my co-workers after working an extra long day. I had to rush back home to grab my things, shower and get back into the city, just making the last train into the city for the night. Well planned by me. But I did make it and I was lucky to get a sleeper berth to myself. Booya.

Cozy sleeper berth

The sleeper train is well worth taking. I slept like shit, but it was the best way to go really. The bed is warm and comfortable. If you can book in with someone you know, even better. And book early as it can be very cheap! One of my tickets was £19.

I got into Glasgow around 7 and caught the 926 bus to Cairndow. I called the brewery when I got there and someone nicely came to pick me up! It was only 2 miles to Fyne Fest, but I had no idea on how far it was. It was so nice of Fyne Ales to arrange transport for campers, especially single and mostly lost ladies like myself.

I got there around 11 and the festival didn’t officially open until 4. So I set up my tent, went to the brewery tap which had been remodeled since my first visit. It’s really nice and welcoming. My first pint was Jarl, which is one of my favorite Fyne Ales. After a short nap, the festival officially opened.

Welcome to Heaven/FyneFest

I had my first festival pint which was Oakham Citra, which I think I’ve had before but couldn’t remember much about. It was good and I paired it with salmon kedgeree. The kedgeree was my favorite dish of the weekend and I should have had it again, but I was too busy trying all the rest of the food.

Delicious kedgeree

With a full stomach I started ticking off the beers on the list. I got 20 beer tokens (1 token = 1/2 pint) and figured that would just about last me into Saturday evening. 10 pints is a lot, but with so many delicious beers I knew I would be drinking plenty. The night ticked on and I made a few friends and started chatting about this and that beer, the glorious city of London (which Scottish people don’t seem to see that glory), and basically everything else under the sun. Before I knew it it was night and it was absolutely bucketing down with rain and very windy. I was struggling to stay awake after a long week so I retired early to my bed. I am happy to report that my tent was indeed waterproof and thank god for that!

Ye little tent

As you can see I have a pole sticking up in my tent awkwardly. That’s because the pole in my never-used-before-tent broke when I was trying to set it up. I was very pleased about this. I even got a guy to tape it back together but it snapped again. Luckily it was just for the rain fly, so I was ok. It was super awkward to keep putting the pole up when I got in and out but not the end of the world.

So Saturday was the main day of awesome. I got to the beer tent when it opened up at 11 AM. My first beer was Fyne Ales Bell Rock n’ Hop which started me down a long and treacherous path of IPAs and high percentage alcohol for the day. I was planning to walk that day to the Walkers Bar up the glen. I struck up a conversation with a nice guy in the beer tent who was also heading that way so we decided to walk together. I packed a Superiour IPA (7.1%) in my flask for the 3 mile walk like any sensible person would do. The rain was intermittent on the walk but overall really pleasant.

Local we met on the way to the Walker’s Bar

Path up the glen

Walker’s Bar from across the river

In the hut

 

This was the best part of the festival for me. The walk was a welcome reprieve from the beer fest. The glen was beautiful. Inside the fishing hut was 4 kegs of Fyne Ale and some lovely burgers. We got to chatting with Jamie from Fyne Ales and one of the brewers from de Molen for a while as we sank a couple pints. I had a Raad & Daad from de Molen the night before which was the most vinegary beer ever to pass my lips. Yikes. But after speaking with the brewer from de Molen we gave the Amarillo a try on his suggestion back at the beer tent, which completely redeemed them. It was one of my favorites of the fest.

Once back at the brewery we went on a brewery tour where I was surprised at how small the brewing set up was at Fyne Ales. From what I remember from my alcoholic haze they have a 7 or 9 barrel system. The amount they produce from this is amazing. They must have been brewing like mad before Fyne Fest to produce all the beers they had on at the festival. They did have quite a lot of fermenters to be fair.

 Brew kettle

We headed back to the beer tent from there and got onto that Amarillo I spoke of earlier. Then I went for the Lemoncello IPA (9%) from Siren Craft Brew. It was some bit after that when things began slipping away from me. Luckily my little internal sober conscious took over, dragged me out of the beer tent, made me eat loads of food and boshed a 1.5l water in like 10 minutes. I sat down for a while to gather myself and suddenly I was back! Back ready to dance! I drank a bit more but mostly I was focused on dancing. This went on until midnight when I excused myself from the dance floor and went back to my tent.

I woke up Sunday  at 7 a bit worse for wear. Walking back to my tent from the loo I thought I may toss my cookies. Drinking a bit more water and heading back to bed seemed to help me quite a bit. Finally I got up at 10 and made a double cup of tea. This tea certainly saved my life. Thanks to my co-worker for lending me his little stove.

The most important cup of tea in my life.

I did lay around a little bit more as I wasn’t scheduled to leave until 3. And in my drunken stumblings the night before I pre-ordered some seafood paella for Sunday. Well done drunk Colleen.

Paella getting served up by Loch Fyne Oysters

I can’t say enough about the food I ate all weekend. It was just as good as the beer. All of it was by local guys with local ingredients. I really enjoyed everything I had.

After getting my paella I got a beer and ate. It took a lot of courage to get a lot of beer. I will admit that I tried to go up at 11:30 to get a beer and had to step away and go for a walk. I just couldn’t face it just yet. But I did get two more beers the last being the Sublime Stout. It was pretty sublime and I would have enjoyed it more on a different day.

Putting on a brave face.

Not long after, I took down my tent and headed out for Inveraray for the rest of my Scottish adventure.

Really, it was such a phenomenal festival. The brewery really looked after everyone there so well. I have very little to criticize about the festival. Everyone was in a great mood. Lots of happy kids running around. Well, a lot of happy adults running around as well. Next year it would be great to bring some friends along, but if I go alone again I know I’ll have a great time too!

A pretty good place to be in the world.

I’ll write up a bit about the rest of my trip later and share some photos.  Until then enjoy the rest of the weekend! Peace.

Feeling pretty Fyne

My liver. Scotland, what have you done to my liver? I am finally home this evening after a long, public transport frenzy of a trip to Scotland for Fyne Fest. It was so good and I will never forget the weekend and memories made.

I’ll be sure to do a full update this weekend when I have some time. But I will show you a few sneak peak photos. See, it all started lovely. This was me on Friday morning.

Cheerful and ready for beer on Loch Fyne

Then I added a bit of this:

Woo drinking in the sun!

And some of this Saturday night:

 

Woo dancing!

And it lead to this on Sunday noontime:

Keep on trucking.

Please let the record show that I kept going on Sunday, converting the remainder of my beer tokens for beer. Like a boss. Luckily it was only 2. No way was I going to give up so close to the finish line.

It was really fun and I am definitely going again next year. I hope I can convince some people to join me. If not, I imagine I’ll still enjoy myself.

I’m off to bed to try and regain some sort of normalcy in my life. Look for an update come Saturday! Cheers friends.

Get busy living

Woah, I have no idea where the last couple weeks have gone. It’s been a whirlwind of events, parties, gigs, drinking, tennis and work with little time for me to catch my breath. I’m trying to use my free time this weekend to catch up on all that’s been going on with life while I’ve been out living it. It’s noon and I had a decent night sleep, but I’m still struggling to keep my eyes open. It seems like all the weight of the last few weeks is finally getting off my shoulders. My mind is still not sure about being here. London though is throwing itself at me trying to get me to stay here long term. It’s doing things like making me look at stuff like this:

Shiny glass and steel London on the South Bank.

C’mon London. That’s not even fair. You know I can’t resist buildings and sun and stuff. You can’t even see the top of the Shard the sun is so lovely. And then this too?

The city!

Pretty nice. I was lucky enough to attend an awards ceremony at City Hall this week. The “living room” is an amazing venue and you can walk around outside around the perimeter of the building to have a look at London. I haven’t been in the London Bridge area of the city in the light in ages. It’s hard not to love London on evenings like this. Especially when you’re drinking free red wine.

Last week I turned the big 31. I had an excellent turn out for my birthday drinks at Euston Tap. Both co-workers and regular type friends. We had a few drinks there and then went to see Cold War Kids in concert up in Kentish Town. I had a great time, but the lighting and sound at the gig left something to be desired. We still did some shuffling and dancing. I would post photos, but I managed to not take any people photos that night. Only one of my half-eaten falafel wrap.

falafel

I know you all wanted to see it. Recently, I’ve been venturing into the world of falafel wraps pretty heavily. It’s a good world to be in. Come join me there if you’d like.

Also this week was Walk to Work week. Doesn’t that sound like a fun initiative. I thought so at least. It’s 10.6 miles cycling to work for me each way. And while I did think about walking to work, I passed it up. I did meet up with some co-workers and walk from Vauxhall train station to work. It was 3.5 miles to work from there. The morning was not the best in terms of how I felt (late night the previous night) but it was absolutely glorious out. I felt better after getting some fresh air and taking in the sites. It was a different bit of London than I normally see on my commute into work, so I very much liked it. You see a lot as a cyclist rather than a car driver, but walking makes you notice even more of the world around you. So I was able to appreciate a view like this on my way into work:

Victoria Tower Gardens on a sunny Thursday morning.

It’s no St. Margaret Mercy, but it’s not bad to look at when you’re on your way to work. So that was cool to do. I will stick to cycling to work, but I think one of these days I will actually do the whole walk to or from work. My friend and I are already thinking about doing it on some nice Summer day. Maybe stop for drinks and dinner on the way home.

Yesterday was a big day for my pub quiz team. We went out and blew our pub quiz winnings in one mighty crawl. There are 10 of us who regularly quiz together and over the last 6-7 months we have collected a mighty sum of money from wining. £600 in fact. Here we all are at the Railway, where we normally quiz these days.

Team Quiz on my _____

So yeah, that’s a good meal out and a lot of booze for each person.We stayed local and went to all of our regular haunts. Plus went out for mexican. I was starting to become very intoxicated by dinner time. But I stuffed myself silly with food at the restaurant and could not contemplate consuming any more calories. Ok, ok, I had one more pint, but I was done after that. It was really for the best in the end. I wanted to be alive today and not laying in bed wishing I didn’t have so many shots. I’m just about 100%, though very sleepy over all. That’s a big victory for me considering the way I’ve felt the next morning after being out on the lash.

Here’s a very flattering picture of me towards the end of the night.

I don’t need another, thank you.

 

Nice to catch up and see everyone out in one evening!

So that’s that. I find out more about permanency of work this week. I made a much better case for keeping me around last week than I did previously. Thanks St. John’s Wort! You’re my new best friend! That’s the first step of many to being here long term. If that happens. If I want it to happen. Le sigh.

I’m out playing tennis today. I need to play as I’ve somehow signed up for 2 leagues and 4 different tournaments this summer not really thinking anything of it. That’s a lot of tennis to have to play and book into my schedule. I’m not sure my game is up to it nor my body. I hope to at least get some good wins under my belt.

All, have a good week. Stay positive. Have a good time. Get out and explore. Peace.